“We’re not going to cut your hair.” Edwin tossed the words behind him, working steadily. Working with care. “And I’m going to take you shopping for the most beautiful dresses you’ve ever seen, all right? I’m not going to punish you for your beauty. I’m not like them.”

He’s not like them, she told herself, and her grip on the blankets loosened. She pushed off the bed, scurrying toward him. He was hunched over the window, tugging on it to see if it stayed closed. He heaved and panted, but nothing shifted.

“You’ll be safe here,” he told her, his muscles relaxing now that the job was finished. “I’ll take you to school every day and pick you up at three on the dot. Sometimes I have engagements in the evening, but we’ll keep you locked up tight in the house. No one will be able to get to you, because you’ll never be alone out there.”

He gestured to the window, and the world beyond. In houses all over Rose Hollow, little girls were sleeping sweetly in their beds, unsuspecting. Pretty girls. Helpless girls. Was anyone going to help them? Some man could slide open their windows in the middle of the night, and then what would they do? They would scream and they would fight, and it would be of no use. The men would be stronger than them.

But Belle didn’t have to worry about that. She had a father now, and he was going to protect her. No matter what. All summer Belle slept in a room with nails in the windows and a door that Edwin locked from the outside with a skeleton key. She had her own private bathroom, so she didn’t have to worry about being let out during the night. She slept soundly in her four-poster bed, knowing she was protected from the evil of the world. Unharmed. Untouched.

When middle school began, and she asked to go to the birthday party of a classmate, Edwin sat her down and explained that bad things happened at parties. Boys became… dangerous. They transformed like werewolves at the slightest flash of skin, and you couldn’t be too careful, so of course he couldn’t let her attend. Instead, he set to work building a library, so she could read about parties more lavish than her classmates would ever throw. Masquerade balls and dresses the color of glittering jewels. Princes who behaved like gentlemen and monsters who could be defeated. By the time Belle turned twelve, she’d given up on the idea of going to parties in the real world, and she holed up in the library every weekend, reading about other people’s adventures.

It was better that way, honestly. She was safe.